Paul Gordon: When will Fort Detrick pay for the impacts it creates?

Fort Detrick and the feds have brushed aside any concerns about the health, safety and welfare of Frederick's residents connected with the work that will occur at the fort.

Terrorism is impossible to forecast, they say. But traffic, school attendance and impacts on housing and water use are not impossible to forecast.

Our public officials, enamored with the on-site jobs created by Detrick's expansion, forgot to consider that there could be twice as many related jobs created offsite. Certainly, that is economically exciting, but it also means the impacts on the health, safety and welfare of the residents could be tripled.

Were it a private sector expansion, the developer would have to jump through hoops and prove public facilities are adequate to handle the development. But not so for Fort Detrick. Big Brother tells us expansion at the government facility will happen, so live with it.

In the next three years, 1,400 new jobs will have opened at the fort. Even though roads around it operate near or beyond capacity, even though water needs will increase, even though many schools are overcrowded and approximately 420 students will be added, the fort will urgently move ahead with expansion.

Consideration for our health, safety and welfare is something we'll work out over the next millennium, if then.

I didn't believe Commission President Jan H. Gardner's report that the feds only gave the county $103,000 to aid in the education of 1,012 students whose parents live or work at Fort Detrick, and that she was not pounding the table to demand more.

Nor has one word been spoken about the fact that Fort Detrick pays no taxes to cover the impacts they have on local facilities. And what are those impacts?

Besides schools, Detrick is planning a new entrance near the Nallin Farm on Opossumtown Road close to Frederick Community College where traffic is impacted already by students entering and exiting the campus. Think about Monocacy Middle not too far away. Ride Opossumtown Road, Rosemont Avenue and 7th Street during Detrick's filling and emptying of employees. Then visualize between 1,400 and 4,200 more vehicles in the backups.

In addition to the workers, no one has imputed the traffic flow from another Detrick project called the EUL site near community college. It is proposed to turn 24 acres into a hotel⁄conference center (maybe with a golf course), office and laboratory sites and even a bed-and-breakfast. No one has talked about the added impacts. And by the way, the U.S. Army's own Web site concerning EUL says about the taxing authority of local government with respect to government land leases “in general, there would be no real property taxes since the development is on the military installation.“

It should also be remembered that in the last few years, Fort Detrick has become a site where an enhanced PX was built to attract retired military from a wide area to this sales-tax-free zone. Add those trips per day to the mix, and one must ask, “Where does it end?“

U.S. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-Dist. 6) of Buckeystown called the lack of tax collection “this patriotic contribution to our national defense by providing for increased quality of life for our military people and our retired people.“ But he was elected to provide for the increased quality of life for citizens he represents also. And there he has failed.

We look to local government to demand the feds pick up the slack. They haven't done it.

Paul Gordon is a local historian, and was mayor of Frederick city from January 1990 to January 1994. His column appears weekly. You can reach him at prg202@comcast.net. To send a letter to the editor in response to this column, e-mail frederick@gazette.net.